Across India eBook

“He used up years in this manner, and after
much reasoning, came to the conclusion that ignorance
was misery. He gave himself up to study, and at
last came to believe that he had reached the perfection
of wisdom. The tree under which he sat when he
reached this result was then called Bodhidruma,
or the tree of intelligence; and the Buddhists believe
the spot where it grew to be the centre of the earth.
A tree that passes for this one was discovered by
a Chinese, still standing twelve hundred years after
the death of the Buddha; and the bo-tree of Ceylon
is regarded as its legitimate descendant. You
have been told something about it.

“In Benares, having ascertained the cause of
human misery, and learned the remedy for it, the Buddha
began to preach his peculiar salvation. In the
phrase of his religion he ‘turned the wheel of
the law.’ One of his titles is Chakravartin,
which means ‘the turner of a wheel.’
The doctrines of the Buddha are written out on a wheel,
which is set in motion with a crank, though it is
sometimes operated by horse-power; and such machines
are sometimes seen in front of religious houses in
Thibet, and the monks have portable ones.”

“I thought the religion of Thibet was the worship
of the Grand Lama,” suggested Louis.

“That is a form of Buddhism. The most important
of the converts of the Buddha was the Rajah of Magadha,
or Behar, on the Ganges, which gave him a good start,
and it has since made almost incredible progress.
It would take too long to state the doctrines in detail
of this sect, and you get an idea of what it must
be from what I said of its founder. Its leading
doctrine is the transmigration of souls, also called
by that tough word, metempsychosis, though other Hindu
systems adopt this belief. It seems to include
the recognition of the immortality of the soul, which
at the death of the body passes into another form
of existence,—­a man, a woman, a lower animal,
or even a tree or other plant. The Buddha claims
to have been born five hundred and fifty times,—­a
hermit, a slave, a king, a monkey, an elephant, a
fish, a frog, a tree, etc. When he reached
his highest condition of perfection, he could recall
all these different states of being; and he has written
them out.

“Some of the negroes of Africa have this belief,
and when a child is born they decide upon the ancestor
whose soul has returned to the flesh in this world.
There are one hundred and thirty-six Buddhist hells,
regularly graded in the degree of suffering experienced
and the length of time it endures, the shortest term
being ten million years. A good life secures an
elevated and happy life on earth, or as a blessed spirit
in one of the many heavens, where existence is continued
for a bagatelle of ten billion years. When the
karma is exhausted”—­

“What in the world is that?” asked Mrs.
Blossom, who was struggling to understand the subject.